


Pop Rocks and Many Shocks

by EggofLexington



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bottom Hank, Bottom Hank Anderson, Character is Dead but Temporarily, Connor (Detroit: Become Human) Has a Penis, Depressed Hank Anderson, Getting Together, Hank Anderson Deserves Happiness, Hank Anderson and Connor Live Together, Hank Anderson is Bad at Feelings, Hank Keeps Connor's Corpse for a While so Please Be Ready for That, M/M, Pining, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Top Connor, Top Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-17
Updated: 2020-05-17
Packaged: 2021-03-03 04:08:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,359
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24228601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EggofLexington/pseuds/EggofLexington
Summary: After Connor chooses to remain a machine and destroy the android revolution, Hank Anderson has to pick up the pieces of what's left of his life and find his place in the world. As always, everything starts to make sense when a weird little android reenters his life.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor & Sumo, Hank Anderson & Sumo, Hank Anderson/Connor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 26





	Pop Rocks and Many Shocks

**Author's Note:**

> Hey! This is a project I've had in mind for a while, and I have the whole story outlined already. I plan to update it often, but I'm in graduate school! Updates will come when they can, and I hope you're all ready to read my brainchild.

Hank had thought he was a sorry son-of-a-bitch for a while, but he started being able to tolerate himself around the time a certain robot came into his life.

Connor was a funny looking guy with enough moles and freckles to make Hank think that the designers back at Cyberlife had way too much time on their hands and a very specific fetish. He was quirky and always played with that stupid quarter of his even when Hank protested. He and Connor worked every case with ease, and they caught deviant after deviant together. Hank really considered him a friend. Thinking about him made his chest hurt in ways he knew weren’t related to his medical history.

Hank was honestly impressed by how much the android’s presence had reinstated his will to live. Hank’s life had purpose again. Jeffrey even saw the changes Connor instilled in Hank, and they both believed they were for the better.

Now, Connor was never perfect by any means. He still killed deviants without any hesitation and butted heads with Detective Reed regularly. However, when Connor refused to shoot that girl at Kamski’s place despite that being their best lead to finish the deviant investigation, Hank thought there might be something more to the android detective. He always claimed to be a machine, but the more Hank got to know him, the more real Connor seemed. Hell, he was more real than half of the people Hank talked to in a day.

There were times where Hank and Connor would joke around. When Connor would seem almost like a real person. His rich brown eyes and his soft smile made Hank forget about the years of mourning he spent cooped up in his own house.

He really thought Connor could deviate.

And when Connor didn’t deviate, when he carried on with his mission to hunt down the deviant leader North after  _ everything  _ they went through together… well, Hank couldn’t stand aside and let him kill the deviant species’ only fighting chance. Connor might not be alive, but there were plenty of other androids that woke up and needed to be allowed to live.

Hank’s a detective, and he’s damn good at his job despite his disinterest in the past few years, so he was able to track Connor down with no problem at all. Either Connor wasn’t covering his tracks well or Hank was still one of the best damn cops in Detroit. That’s how he found himself standing on a quiet rooftop, stomping through the snow to the ledge where the android he once thought of as a friend sat holding a sniper rifle pointed at the gathered deviants.

“You shouldn’t do this, Connor,” Hank said, staggering up to the android.

Connor looked annoyed as he lowered the gun just enough to look over his shoulder at Hank and reply almost casually, “Keep out of this, Lieutenant. It’s none of your business!” The annoyance in his voice was palpable as he pressed the butt of the gun back into his shoulder and stared down the scope presumably at North.

Hank was ready for resistance. He didn’t know if Connor was capable of feeling anything anymore - he was a machine, after all. Connor had told him so probably a dozen times since they first met, but even now, Hank hoped to rationalize with his friend.

“That’s what I thought for a long time, but I was wrong.” Hank increased the volume of his voice, trying to speak over the wind howling over the rooftop. “Deviant’s blood may be a different color than mine, but they’re alive.”

Connor was still staring down the gun’s scope, but he hadn’t pulled the trigger. He paused for a moment before he seemed to accept that Hank wasn’t going away. Hank was ready to have to fight Connor if necessary in order to save the deviants. He knew the android would say or do whatever it took to accomplish his mission. Instead, Connor shouted over his shoulder, “I have a mission to accomplish, Hank. It’s best if you stay out of this.”

Huh.

That wasn’t exactly the response Hank had prepared for. He sucked in a steadying breath, filling his lungs with the chilly air. He couldn’t stay out here much longer, but he was committed to rationalizing with Connor. Hank took another step closer to the android and pulled out his pistol. He demanded, “Step away from the ledge!”

Connor looked over his shoulder once more and glanced at Hank and his gun. Connor shook his head and dropped his shoulders. Hank would have registered the action as a sign of defeat if he didn’t know the android better by now. Connor could close the space between them and snap Hank’s neck before he could even pull the trigger. Connor was Cyberlife’s perfect killing machine, and there was no way Hank could forget that after having worked with him. So no, the android wasn’t defeated. He was most likely irritated by Hank’s persistence and wanted him to go away. 

Connor pushed himself away from the ledge, standing up, and carrying his gun with him. He held it in his right arm, pointed towards the ground as he looked over Hank’s form. 

Connor thought for a moment before he opened his mouth and said, “I know what happened to your son, Hank. It wasn’t your fault. A truck skidded on a sheet of ice, and your car rolled over… Little Cole had just turned six…”

Hank snapped, “Shut up! Don’t talk about my son.” He didn’t know why Connor decided to bring this up now of all times, but he didn’t want to listen to the android try and explain his own issues to him.

His finger ached to pull the trigger.

“He needed emergency surgery,” Connor pressed on. “But no human was available to do it, so an android had to take care of him… Poor Cole didn’t make it.” Connor’s tone was somewhat cruel, and Hank would have blown his head off by now if Hank were a stronger man. “An android killed your son, Hank! And now you want to save them?”

Hank wasn’t having it. He shook his head and protested, “No! Cole died because a human surgeon was too high on red ice to operate. All this time, I blamed androids for what happened, but it was a human’s fault. Him and this fucked up world where the only way people can find comfort is with a fistful of powder!”

Connor was cold and expressionless as he listened to Hank’s passionate tirade. Finally, he said, “Killing you is not part of my mission.” While Hank’s gun was still trailed on him, Connor threw his rifle to the side and walked towards Hank. He stopped just a few feet in front of the Lieutenant, the pistol almost brushing his chest. Connor held Hank’s gaze and continued, this time sounding much less like a man on a mission and more like a friend, “I’m glad to have met you, Hank. I hope one day you can get over what happened to your son.”

That caught Hank off guard. He wasn’t prepared for Connor’s genuine statement, so he didn’t even react as the android walked past him to leave the rooftop. Hank just lowered his gun and blinked away the few tears that had threatened to spill during their conversation.

Hank didn’t look back at him despite the longing he felt to try and stop him again. Connor wasn’t a deviant despite his kind words. Hank would have to move on from more than just Cole.

He was just an old man who needed to quit his job and accept that his closest friend had left him just like everyone else before him.

Still, Hank stayed on the rooftop for several minutes to give Connor a head start. He feared what they would do if they bumped into each other again.

After what he guessed was five minutes, Hank went home. He climbed into the Oldsmobile and drove to his shabby little house on the outskirts of Detroit and was only greeted by his dog.

He scratched between Sumo’s ears and dropped down onto the couch. Sumo climbed up onto the couch with Hank and rested in his lap. Hank patted the old dog, hoping the climb onto the couch wasn’t too hard on his joints. Sumo just huffed and started getting comfortable to sleep in Hank’s lap.

Hank propped his feet up on the coffee table to give Sumo a more stable surface to sleep on, and he reached over to grab the TV remote. 

While he flipped through the channels, he idly started rambling to Sumo.

“Fuckin’ androids. Amiright, Sumo?” The dog huffed at the sound of his name. “Exactly. Connor rudely interrupted me at the bar saying he’s my partner on the case - I didn’t need or want a partner in the first place. Then, he comes in here and breaks my window - the asshole doesn’t even offer to fix it.” Hank looked over the back of the couch and into the kitchen where he taped a tarp over his kitchen window. He ran his hands through Sumo’s thick fur again and kept talking, “Then, he just… drops me. He changed basically overnight and went from the goofy guy I work with back to ‘the android sent by Cyberlife’ despite all the progress he’d made. You can’t fuckin’ trust anyone, Sumo. That’s okay though - we don’t need him anyway. We don’t need his fucking goofy-ass face and his…”

Whatever Hank was about to say died in his throat as he settled on the news channel. On-screen, military officials gathered the last remaining deviants in Detroit and executed them on the sidewalks like it was nothing. He sat, shock-still as the reporter explained that the deviant leader North was found dead in an abandoned warehouse. The following shot showed North with a bullet hole in her forehead. Hank felt sick but continued watching. Sumo and his own morbid curiosity anchored him to the couch.

There was a short message from Cyberlife saying they had a hand in resolving the deviant situation and would be working on future models resistant to deviancy to be released sometime in the next year. Hank cut the TV off some time after the message ended and footage of a decapitated android being strung up from a flag pole filled the screen.

The deviants lost.

Connor never came home.

Hank handed in his badge the following morning. He couldn’t tell if Jeffery had expected it or not, but either way, his old friend took it and his pistol with a solemn nod.

“I honestly expected this sooner, Hank,” Fowler said as he placed the items onto the desk in front of him. “I can’t say I’m surprised, but you seemed to be doing so much better lately. I just wish you luck with whatever you decide to do now.”

“Sure, thanks,” Hank grumbled and turned to leave the bullpen. He did, however, slow down as he passed Reed’s desk. The fucker looked up at him with a sly grin, so Hank flipped him off one last time for good measure.

The drive back home was quiet since Hank didn’t even feel like turning any music on. He mentally went over his monthly spendings and decided he had enough to last for a little while before he would have to find something else to do. He could stretch his saving out for a year or two if he really wanted to. He shrugged to himself. It’s not like he would be around much longer anyway.

Two weeks later, Hank was visiting a bar on the outskirts of Detroit. He parked the Oldsmobile a few blocks away and trudged through the snow to get to it. It wasn’t one of his usual stops, but he didn’t want to see any familiar faces tonight in the first place. Inside, the air was thick with moisture, and there were bodies packed into the small room like sardines. Hank shoved past them as he could and ordered himself a glass of whiskey to get started.

The bartender was a fit young man with an attractive yet generic face and blue eyes. If Hank were about twenty years younger, he would try to hit on him, but Hank was no longer in his prime, and the man wasn’t what he wanted anymore. Nevertheless, he handed Hank his drink with a wink, and Hank downed it, feeling pathetic for even coming here in the first place.

It’s not like the act of visiting a bar was in itself unusual, but Hank didn’t typically look for places this busy to occupy his time. He had spent the last several nights drinking at home, and he was pretty sure his depression was only going to get worse if he didn’t change something. So here he was, surrounded by people too young for him to really relate to, drinking drinks that cost too much for him to buy many of them, and mourning an android that he questioned was ever really his friend. He supposed it would be like making friends with a toaster.

After nursing his third drink in an hour, Hank had started to feel buzzed and warm all over. The air in the bar was getting too stuffy for him to really tolerate much longer, so he made his way back through the crowd and stepped into the frigid air outside. The world was quiet out there. There weren’t many people who wanted to be outside in the aftermath of the androids’ failed attempt at a revolution. Anti-android propaganda still littered the streets, and there was more graffiti than Hank had ever seen in his life. It was honestly a miracle that the bar he just left was still even open since so many other businesses had shut down.

At the end of the street, a few Cyberlife employees exited a huge white truck. They walked over to one of the many piles of android bodies that still littered the sidewalks and scanned the models before throwing them into the back of the truck. They had been doing this since the revolution was halted, and Hank hated how most people thought of it in the same way as they would garbage pickup.

Hank parked in the opposite direction of the pickup truck, so he was able to turn his back to it and ignore it for the most part. He only stumbled a little and held onto the brick wall as he walked down the icy sidewalk. A particularly thick patch of snow came up ahead of him, and Hank slowed down to walk through it. He hoped the snow would be clear by the next morning because he would like to take Sumo on a good long walk.

His thought was interrupted when his foot landed on something uneven and he tumbled over into the snow. Hank landed onto the hard pavement with a thud and a groan. 

He laid there in the snow for a moment, his head spinning and his lungs straining for air. He pushed himself up into a sitting position and put his head in his hands. Fuck, he needed to get to his car and go home. Or maybe he needed to call for a ride home and get the Oldsmobile in the morning.

He kicked the lump of snow in frustration. Instead of hitting something solid or just more snow, Hank heard a hollow thump like he was hitting plastic. Hank’s curiosity got the better of him, so he scooted over to the lump and cleared the top layer of snow.

Hank felt immediately sober.

He covered his mouth with both of his hands to muffle the scream that was trying to bubble up in his chest as he stared down at a familiar face. Connor’s face was still mostly covered by snow, but Hank could tell it was him. His freckles and moles were all in the right places, and his hair was still immaculately styled. Hank steadied himself and hurriedly pushed the snow further away from the android’s face.

Despite all of the complicated feelings Hank had towards the other man, he still felt a swell of emotions at having discovered his ex-partner’s body. He knew there wasn’t a chance of him still being operational because of the bullet hole that obstructed half of Connor’s face, but the side still intact gave Hank a sense of longing and being home that he hadn’t felt since the android’s disappearance. 

The Cyberlife truck moved a block closer, and Hank hurried to remember where he parked his car as he cleared the rest of the snow. Several androids’ bodies were laying near Connor’s, but Hank didn’t need to take them all. It looked like someone had collected all of these bodies and piled them against the side of the building. The snow made them look like any other pile of snow, but Hank realized that most of the other piles were likely also piles of android bodies.

With the truck moving closer and Hank’s now-sober brain moving as quickly as it could, he did what any rational person would do and decided to take his dead best friend’s body home.

Hank originally tried to lift the android’s body, but he regretted that almost immediately. Underneath the plastic exterior that all androids had, apparently Connor was built much heavier. Hank could only assume he had a heavier frame than most androids, so he opted to do the next best thing and hook his arms underneath the android’s arms. He started dragging him and silently thanked his past self for parking only a few blocks away.

He quickened his pace when the truck started to move again, and he ended up back at his car in no time. It was a little awkward to stuff the android into the backseat. Hank got into the car and pulled Connor’s top half into the floorboard before he had to get back out and fold the other man’s legs up in order to be able to close the car door. He got into the driver’s seat and turned off the music that started to vibrate the whole vehicle the moment he crunk the engine. With one more look at the android in the back of the car, Hank pulled out of the parking lot and started to drive home. He passed the Cyberlife employees who were busying themselves with collecting the androids who were piled around Connor just a few minutes prior.

Hank squeezed his eyes shut at the stoplight and wondered what he was going to do with a dead android. However, he was also thankful he got to Connor before the Cyberlife employees did.

Sometime past four in the morning, Hank realized he was going to have yet another sleepless night. He was leaning against the kitchen counter nursing a cup of coffee and looking at the lifeless shell that used to house his old partner. Sumo hadn’t left Connor’s side since Hank hauled him into the house and sat him at the kitchen table. Every few minutes, the saint bernard whined and licked Connor’s lifeless hand. 

There wasn’t any thirium still visible. Besides the caved-in section in Connor’s face, Hank couldn’t see any blue. The ex-lieutenant assumed it was because he had bled out too long ago for the liquid to still be visible to the human eye, but he could still imagine the streams of it running out of Connor’s mouth and nose and onto his ruined uniform.

Logically, Hank knew Connor was gone. And he knew it wasn’t normal to keep your partner’s body at your kitchen table. However, he wasn’t sure what the respectful thing to do with your android friend’s remains would be, and he was not about to hand him over to Cyberlife.

So, here he was. Living with the shell of his former friend.

Hank got up, opened the fridge to grab a carton of eggs, and asked Sumo, “So do you want your eggs scrambled or fried?”


End file.
